It has some of our favorites, such as the Honda Accord and Mazda6 and some choices that we might not have included, including the Volkswagen Jetta and Toyota Camry.

While all of these vehicles have a model that sells for less than $25,000, and some well under that, others might cost more once you include options and other amenities such as leather seats. And don’t forget to add in tax and license fees, which run about 10% of the purchase price.

Still, there’s no doubt that there are many good family sedans on the market right now as increased competition from U.S. auto companies and South Koreans have dented the domination by the Japanese automakers in this segment.

“There are a lot of fabulous sedans,” said Karl Brauer, an analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “We have seen a real rush of redesigns in this category and now most of these models are just two years old or less. I think the Kia Optima is the oldest model on our list.”

Our test drives have found this new generation of cars offers two significant improvements over older models. They get much better fuel economy and they are generally quieter. This is really evident comparing the current version of Honda’s Accord and Civic to the previous models.